Prognosis and survival study in patients with gastric adenocarcinoma and its relationship with pRb expression alteration: A retrospective IHC-based study

Background and objective: Among cancers, gastric cancer has the fifth highest incidence worldwide and is the third most common mortality factor, which may have been due to inadequate knowledge of its molecular pathogenesis. The retinoblastoma gene (RB1), a tumor suppressor gene, may have a role in gastric cancer. This research aims to assess Rb expression as a prognostic marker to obtain more insight regarding gastric cancer.

Methods: This retrospective analytical study was done on 61 patients (45 males and 16 females) with gastric adenocarcinoma admitted from 2010 to 2012 in Shahid Sadoughi and Mortaz hospitals, Yazd, Iran. Demographic data, including age, gender, clinical signs and symptoms, and pathology reports, were retrieved from patients' hospital folders. Then, the altered Retinoblastoma gene expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry studies. Acquired data were analyzed by SPSS software v.16. p < 0.05 was statistically considered meaningful.

Results: In this study, the ratio of men to women was higher (2.81:1), and the mean age of patients was 62.44 years. About 90.2% of patients died during the study. There was no meaningful relationship between the presence of pRb, the intensity of staining, the percentage of staining with patients' age, gender, tumor grading, and survival rate (p > 0.05). There was only a meaningful relationship between the grade of tumors and survival rate (p = 0.039).

Conclusion: Altered pRB expression is not common in gastric cancer and does not impact the survival and grading of tumors. Poorly differentiated tumors had an ominous outcome with the lowest survival time.